Alien Moonshine
by djenie
Summary: Sam and Jack and an alien doohickey. Pure nonsense! I throw myself on your mercy!


He'd been driving her crazy for weeks! The piece of alien technology they'd brought back from XYZ-123 at the beginning of the month had piqued his interest. Daniel had made the mistake of mentioning that the thing looked a bit like a still, and she'd jokingly agreed—well, there _were_ coils attached to what looked like tankards. The Colonel had immediately made it his mission to get a brewery going right here on base!

"Alien moonshine!" he hollered enthusiastically. He even took to calling _her_ 'Moonshine' when nobody else was around! It made her furious, which only fueled his enjoyment. Eventually, of course, he slipped up and used the nickname in a briefing—she threw her clipboard at him, and then had to explain to Janet why he needed two stitches in his forehead.

The Colonel showed up at her lab shortly after that with a bandage on his head, and a huge grin on his face. She couldn't keep her eyes from flicking back to the bandage every so often, but there was no way in hell she was going to apologize! He'd made her a laughingstock!

Naturally, everyone on base knew about the Moonshine nickname by then, although only a few people—notably Daniel, Janet and Cassie—dared use it to her face. She tried to ignore it, thinking it would die down eventually, but it was still hanging on two weeks later when Jacob arrived through the Gate for a visit. The first time he heard it, he laughed so hard he had to excuse himself from the room.

She began to plot revenge!

She started by locking her lab door, and even rigged the scanner so the Colonel couldn't override it, which of course made for a bit of a furor because he was the base 2IC, and technically had access to everything. When O'Neill complained to Hammond, the General thought about it for a minute and declined to interfere. He wanted to see how this played out. Or maybe he just figured it was safer to have Jack mad at him than Sam!

Of course she'd determined right away that the doohickey which had started all the trouble had nothing to do with the distillation of alcoholic beverages. The hermetically sealed tankards—which she thought contained some kind of power source—were resisting all her efforts to scan their contents, and she certainly didn't want to just force them open. The wire coils extruding from the tankards connected to a hemispheric console about the size of half a basketball, which had a complicated keypad with symbols that even Daniel had been unable to decipher. On the opposite side of the hemisphere from the keypad was an adjustable attachment which looked vaguely like a satellite dish. There was actually no indication that power was currently being fed to the pad, but it would certainly be a mistake to start punching keys before they were translated.

It was another week and half before she stumbled onto the answer.

She had cleared off her lab table, except for the device itself and her lunch, which sat on a tray beyond the half sphere. She was examining the keypad closely, and noticed a small symbol that she had not seen before. It was actually not on a key, but was located just to the right of the pad, almost on the bottom edge, and was incised into the base material, and was the same color. She lifted the near edge of the base to get her eyes closer to the symbol—it vaguely resembled the point of origin sign on the stargate. She put her hand down to touch it. Immediately the symbol began to glow and she yanked her hand back, but it was too late. An extremely bright flash of light emanated from the dish-like attachment on the far side of the base, momentarily blinding her.

A couple of minutes later, when her eyes re-adjusted, she sat staring in surprise at the far side of the table. Carefully, she put out her hand, touching the object that was there. She thought about it for a while. Then finally touched the symbol again. Her face split into a wide grin as she reached over and picked up the chicken sandwich from her lunch tray.

She spent quite a few hours in the next two days running tests with the device, borrowing objects and artifacts from various labs; she even borrowed two white mice from the bio lab and returned them later unharmed. The last test, when she used herself as the subject, was also a success. When she was finished, she sat back and considered what to do, a big smile on her face. This would get her in sooo much trouble—but it would be worth it!

That afternoon Colonel O'Neill was working on reports at his desk when there was a knock on his office door. "Come in."

Major Carter stuck her head in. "Hi, sir," she said, smiling.

"Carter!" He perked up and grinned. "Decided to talk to me again, have you?"

"Well, I have something to show you, sir."

"Come on in." He beckoned.

She pushed the door open all the way and guided in one of the rolling carts that the science department used to transport equipment. On it was the 'moonshine' doohickey.

"What's this? You make me some beer?"

"Not exactly, sir." She closed the door behind her and maneuvered the cart alongside his desk. "I figured out what it does."

"Really?"

"I thought you'd like to see."

"Sure."

"Stand up please, sir, and come around closer. You'll be able to see it better."

"Okay." He came around the desk, and she motioned him even closer to the cart. "What am I lookin' for?" he asked.

"See that little dish-like thing on the side there?" She pointed.

"Mm hm."

"Well, that's what you want to watch, sir." She waited until he bent down to get a better look, and then touched the symbol with her finger, shutting her own eyes at the same time.

The flash of light blinded him completely, and he took a step backwards, bringing his fists to his eyes.

"What the hell! Carter!"

"Did you see it, sir," she said through laughter.

"I can't see a damn thing! What was it?" He was rubbing his eyes.

She covered her mouth with her hand to choke back the mirth. "Oh, you'll get it in just a minute, sir..." She backed away, pulling the cart with her into the hall and shutting the door behind her.

Jack stumbled around the office, running into the edge of the desk and swearing, finally realizing that he needed to just stand still until his eyes recovered. That was a nasty trick, he thought. Carter must still be mad at him.

Finally, things began to clear up. He reached out to pull back his chair and stopped in confusion. He was holding the back of the chair, he could feel it, but he couldn't see his hand. He tightened his grip and pulled on the chair, it moved, seemingly by itself. Panicked, he held his hands up in front of his face—and saw nothing at all. He looked down at himself, and it was the same. After a few desperate minutes, he discovered that if he looked sorta sidewise at himself he could make out a vague outline of his body—but for all intents and purposes, he was invisible!

Jack headed for the door, but stopped with his hand on the doorknob. He couldn't go running around the corridors like this—they'd shoot him before he could explain what had happened! He backed away from the door and returned to his desk. It was weird to watch the phone receiver levitate up toward his ear. And to see the numbers punch themselves as he dialed Daniel's extension.

"Jackson."

"Daniel, come to my office."

"Jack, I'm busy..."

"This is more important! Get down here! And avoid Carter at all cost!"

"What? What about Sam..."

"Just get over here!"

A few minutes later his office door opened and Daniel walked. "Okay, Jack. What's so..." He stopped. "Huh? Where is he?"

"I'm right here, Daniel. Shut the door."

Daniel jumped and looked around. There was really no place to hide in Jack's office. "Where?!"

"I'm sitting at the desk."

Daniel focused on the desk.

"Now I'm getting up," said Jack's voice. And the chair pushed back by itself.

Daniel's eyes popped. "How did you do that? Where are you?" A hand grabbed his arm and he jerked. "Jack?"

"Look out of the corner of your eye, not directly at me."

He tried it and a vague form came in view. "Oh my God! What happened to you, Jack?"

"Carter! She happened! She did this to me—with that moonshine doohickey!"

"What?"

"She brought it in to show me what it does—and this is what I got!"

Daniel choked back a laugh.

"It isn't funny!"

"Oh, yes it is!" Daniel surrendered to his mirth.

"Goddamn it, Daniel! I'm invisible!" Jack screeched.

"Well, not quite," Daniel said, still laughing.

"I swear, I'm gonna knock you down if you don't stop laughing!"

Shaking his head, Daniel forced himself under control. "Okay. Okay. So let's go see Sam. I'm sure she can fix this."

"What if she can't?"

"Jack, she wouldn't do this to you if she wasn't sure she could reverse it. Come on."

So, reluctantly he followed Daniel through the corridors to Sam's lab. One or two people glanced oddly at Dr. Jackson, who seemed to be talking to himself, but otherwise it was an uneventful walk.

Once Jack was restored to his former self, he had to admit that he had deserved the trick.

"So we're even now, sir?" Sam asked.

"We're even."

"No more 'Moonshine'?"

"I actually think it's kind of a cute nickname..."

"Sir!"

"Okay." He raised his hands in surrender. "No more Moonshine."

"Thank you, sir. And I'm sorry I injured you with my clipboard. I didn't mean to hit you in the head."

"No problem, Carter. Just one more scar."

Daniel had been looking at the alien doohickey. "Sam, how do you figure this thing actually works?"

"Well, I think it somehow causes the object or person to be surrounded by a force field, that bends light rays—so you're not really looking through it, but your eyes follow the light around it and you see what's on the other side."

"That's cool!" Daniel exclaimed. "Kind of like the way gravity affects light when it passes near a star. What about the keypad? Any idea on that?"

"It may be a way of programming..."

Jack walked quietly out of the lab, leaving his two star scientists to their techno-babble. He glanced down at his feet as he walked—just to make sure she really had restored him to his former glory.


End file.
